Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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57. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the frequency with which the Irish Aid election observer panel is renewed; the rules of the application process for interested persons; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29364/18]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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58. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the selection process for the election observer panel; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29365/18]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 57 and 58 together.

International election monitoring missions play an important role in the promotion of democracy and human rights. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade maintains and administers a roster of individuals to participate in election observation missions, organised in the main by the OSCE and the EU. The recent practice in Ireland has been for the election observation roster to be set up to include 200 volunteers and to last for five years. The current roster has been extended for one year until end-2018 to allow sufficient time for the mobilisation of 200 volunteers with appropriate experience and a subsequent vetting process.

The public call for applications to establish a new roster will issue on 2 July and will be open until 20 August 2018. The call will be published on two Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade websites: www.dfa.ieand www.irishaid.ieand will also be publicised on the Department’s social media.

A candidate information booklet setting out all of the necessary details including the eligibility requirements and the process leading to the establishment of the roster will be on the aforementioned websites. In addition, this material can be emailed to applicants upon request. All candidates will be required to complete and submit a detailed written application setting out their educational and other formal qualifications, ICT skills, languages, regional and country experience, employment details and references.

In terms of the selection of candidates for the new roster, candidates will need to demonstrate for the first qualifying stage that they meet the essential criteria set out in the application booklet. The second stage is a qualitative scoring of their application under specific headings related to election observation and democratisation.

The process to appoint these volunteers to the roster will be managed by the Election Observation Desk in the Department and the volunteer mobilisation will be run in accordance with established best practice.